So today I must applaud the announcement that the FBI and the Department of Justice have finally expanded the definition of the crime of rape to include the sexual assaults of men, children and any adult who cannot give consent to sex. Though I hate the idea that anyone would experience this or any kind of violence in their lives, it is important to define it accurately in our statistics, so we can work more effectively to prevent this terrible crime.

When I was a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, the woman’s movement was just beginning to build understanding that sexual assaults were NOT the woman’s fault. Even if women were involved, as I was, in working on social justice issues, most of us believed that we only had ourselves were to blame if a man tried to harass or rape us.